MISQUAH — The summer Movie in the Park series opens Friday at dusk in the city park with “The Great Outdoors,” the 1988 comedy the rec department’s notice describes, with admirable economy, as “the one with the bear and the giant steak.”

The film will be projected against the blank white side of the warming house — the same wall that holds the broomball scoreboard in winter and has, over the years, served as backdrop for everything from slide shows to a single memorable wedding — beginning “whenever it gets dark enough, which in early July is late, so plan accordingly and feed the children first,” per rec director Lori Dahl. Blankets and lawn chairs are encouraged; there is no other seating, and the grass, Dahl noted, “is free and slightly damp, like most things here.”

The concession stand will sell popcorn and pop for a dollar each, with proceeds going to the warming-house roof fund, which Dahl described, without apparent embarrassment, as being in “year fourteen of a five-year campaign.” It is the first of four Friday showings running through July, a lineup the committee selected, she said, “for laughs, and for nothing anybody’s grandmother would have to sit through and then call me about.” That a movie about a disastrous lake vacation was chosen to open a summer film series in a lake town was, Dahl conceded, “either perfect or a warning, and after some discussion we decided perfect.”

The mosquitoes, the notice concludes, in a sentence the committee debated and kept, “are free, plentiful, and have also been looking forward to this.” Citronella is encouraged, bug spray permitted, and a breeze, Dahl said, “prayed for but not promised.” The movie itself is free. Everything else, as ever, is a dollar and goes to the roof.